Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again... and many other houses besides. I love absorbing fictional places that set the scene to favourite novels. I imagine retracing familiar characters' footsteps as stories unfold, like Charles Ryder, revisiting Brideshead, recalling motoring there from Oxford with Sebastian on ''a cloudless day in June'' years before. However many times we may revisit Chatsworth, Ickworth or Hatfield we feel we know Brideshead more intimately for we were party to the ''fierce little human tragedy'' played there. We too knelt in the art nouveau chapel, witnessed the tension at Lady Marchmain's Christmas house party and watched the reconstruction of the Queen's bed in the Chinese drawing room on Lord Marchmain's return from Venice, coming home to die.
It is easy to slip back there, as to Manderley, returning to the cosy library with its burning logs or Rebecca's bedroom, its curtains drawn, shutters closed. We hear the sea from the west wing and smell again the sweet, heady scent of azaleas in the Happy Valley.
How well we recall Bathsheba's parlour at her farmhouse in Weatherbury as Sergeant Troy prises open Fanny Robin's coffin to reveal their illegitimate child or the ancestral mansion at Wellbourne whereTess and Angel Clare spend their ill-fated honeymoon. Similarly, we remember Bramshurst Court, boarded and barred as their refuge before their arrest at Stonehenge.
Close your eyes and imagine Thornfield, a burnt-out ruin, Wuthering Heights or the drawing room at Netherfield Park. A spirit of place lingers on in our imagination and memory. Dodie Smith's Belmotte will always be cold, damp and decrepid, Stephen Colley's room unbearably bleak and touching. Even after being burnt down, William Trevor's Kilneagh remains in memory a comforting refuge from the harsh Troubles.
It is impossible to imagine Brandham Hall other than in a heatwave, set in a hazy summer of cricket matches, ladies with parasols. The past is not so much a foreign country as an Edwardian country house we may have visited in childhood, somewhere between Sandringham and Holkham.
In contrast, The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate is seen in autumn shortly before the outbreak of the Great War. Time stands still at Nettleby Park; the lights are already dimming. We sense we shall not see them lit again so brightly. Similarly, events leading up to the Second World War cast a long shadow across Darlington Hall in The Remains of the Day.
In Matilda's England William Trevor explores the relationship of house and owner and its effect on the new inhabitants of Challacombe Manor. Henry James' ''old family place in Essex'' in The Turn of the Screw and Laurel Cottage in Barbara Vine's A Dark Adapted Eye are equally charged: suitable backdrops to sinister events.
Some fictitious places seem so familiar it is as if we have been there like Nancy Mitford's Alconleigh or Linda's appartement in Paris, so wonderfully mocked by Lord Merlin and Davey Warbeck. Who has not seen the entrenching tool, the cabinet of diseased fossils or the store cupboard, fondly named Aladdin? They are as real to the reader as the paintings on the stairs at Manderley, the broken ornament, Rebecca's writing desk.
Once read, some places are never forgotten: Miss Havisham's candlelit, cobwebbed Satis House, the cosiness of the upturned boat in David Copperfield, Mrs. Minver's London drawing room. I will always remember the isolated vicarage in J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country or the farmhouse known as 'The Vision' in Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill with its oak four-poster bed and faded cretonne hangings. A Sussex bedroom described by Elizabeth Jane Howard and a Cotswold sitting room by Margaret Drabble in The Realms of Gold have stayed with me for twenty five years. Does a badger's skull still stand on the wooden chest or a copper kettle on the hearth? Are the curtains with their faded pattern of birds and acorns still the same? Does Natasha still make real bread, real marmalade?
Penelope Lively writes memorably of interiors in both adult and children's fiction. In A House Unlocked she returns to the fictitious Medleycott from Going Back for a factual account of her grandmother's country house, Golsoncott. I thought it seemed familiar: a hazy memory from a long time back, a paperback I lent a friend years before.
We have shared the joys and sorrows of such places; sometimes it is a wrench to leave. We can only wait for the sadness to pass. Even Cecil Beaton's moving biographical account of his lost love, Ashcombe, does not upset me as much as a scene towards the end of Ann Michael's novel, Fugitive Pieces when a young academic visits the Greek house where Jakob Beer, writer and Holocaust survivor lived. There are poignant reminders of lives spent, ''evidence of a life so achingly simple'' that has come to an end.
So these are some of the places I remember, to be revisted time and again. They remain constant in an ever-changing world: comforting retreats, fixed in time, rooted in our imagination. We have only to turn the key in the lock and go inside.
(Originally published in The Hedgerow)
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Tea at Laduree
She said she would meet him for tea at 4 o'clock: the usual place. There were similar teashops spread across Paris but they liked this one best; it was more intimate. Besides, this was the only branch on their side of the river. Since student days Helene had grown fond of the Left Bank with its literary cafes, the Sorbonne, Saint Germain a Pres, the Musee D'Orsay. As she cut through the Jardins de Luxembourg leaves swirled around her, copper-coloured and pale yellow. Shop windows, decorated with Hallowe'en pumpkins and shiny horsechestnuts, displayed accesories of finest suede, velvet and tortoiseshell, silk and lace lingerie the colour of marrons glaces or bitter chocolate.
As she pushed open the heavy pale green door Helene scanned the rows of exquisite patisseries, brioches and macarons carefully being placed in boxes of pink card and rustling carrier bags by impeccably groomed shop assistants. The men wore grey silk ties, the ladies spotted cravats and aprons over their pin-striped suits. The shop was like a miniature Fortnum and Mason; each confection was meticulously labelled in a gilt frame; the windows displayed pyramids of madeleines or macaroons, caramel or pistachio-coloured.
Helene tidied her hair, reapplied some lipstick, briefly pausing to smell the fragrance of some heavy pink roses by the marble washstand. Quickly, she climbed the curved staircase noting the pretty floral design of the carpet secured by stair-rods, anxious to find an empty table. There were one or two tables left as she was ushered into the low square room with its heavy dark-blue tasselled drapes and window boxes planted with marguerites and mauve heather. She sat in the corner, observing the scene: old friends sat on silk button-back chairs engrossed in conversation; silver teapots glistened on little circular black tables in the lamp light; the grey panelled walls were hung with sepia photographs of trees and flowers, framed in gilt. She opened her briefcase and started to read the last two pages of a story she had written, crossing out a few words here and there, scribbling more in the margin.
She put the book away, smiled at the tall familiar figure who strode across the room and kissed her on both cheeks. He passed his raincoat to a waitress who handed them both a menu. Helene wanted to savour this moment forever: the cosy intimacy of being together again. She glanced at his long fingers as he brushed back his wind-swept hair, noticed the pristine collar of his blue shirt, the little dots on his silk tie. Their eyes met: there was so much to say, so little time.
'Tarte au citron?'
'Oui, Papa,' she nodded, utterly content.
As she pushed open the heavy pale green door Helene scanned the rows of exquisite patisseries, brioches and macarons carefully being placed in boxes of pink card and rustling carrier bags by impeccably groomed shop assistants. The men wore grey silk ties, the ladies spotted cravats and aprons over their pin-striped suits. The shop was like a miniature Fortnum and Mason; each confection was meticulously labelled in a gilt frame; the windows displayed pyramids of madeleines or macaroons, caramel or pistachio-coloured.
Helene tidied her hair, reapplied some lipstick, briefly pausing to smell the fragrance of some heavy pink roses by the marble washstand. Quickly, she climbed the curved staircase noting the pretty floral design of the carpet secured by stair-rods, anxious to find an empty table. There were one or two tables left as she was ushered into the low square room with its heavy dark-blue tasselled drapes and window boxes planted with marguerites and mauve heather. She sat in the corner, observing the scene: old friends sat on silk button-back chairs engrossed in conversation; silver teapots glistened on little circular black tables in the lamp light; the grey panelled walls were hung with sepia photographs of trees and flowers, framed in gilt. She opened her briefcase and started to read the last two pages of a story she had written, crossing out a few words here and there, scribbling more in the margin.
She put the book away, smiled at the tall familiar figure who strode across the room and kissed her on both cheeks. He passed his raincoat to a waitress who handed them both a menu. Helene wanted to savour this moment forever: the cosy intimacy of being together again. She glanced at his long fingers as he brushed back his wind-swept hair, noticed the pristine collar of his blue shirt, the little dots on his silk tie. Their eyes met: there was so much to say, so little time.
'Tarte au citron?'
'Oui, Papa,' she nodded, utterly content.
A Frosty Morning
Winter clamps the graveyard with iron fingers; frost penetrates the split tombs and fades the names of those long dead. No one lingers; not even a robin on bare branch dares carol a tune. Budding hawthorn is stilled; only snowdrops are brave enough to herald the spring. Yet traces of autumn linger; crackled beech leaves, white-veined, mulch the earth; birds have stripped the holly bare of berries.
Further down the slope cars drift through the grey wintry haze and people scurry past, heads down, scarves held close to keep out the chill.
I trace the remnants of summer. A few stubborn petals linger by the hedge, faded and crusted with ice, in remembrance of sunnier days, butterflies and fleeting cherry blossom. It is hard to imagine the spiky stumps of rose bushes flowering again. Digging deep into the crusty earth I find my mother’s fragile name card. There are no fragrant lipstick-coloured petals to pocket but the memories of the dead linger and scent the air.
Further down the slope cars drift through the grey wintry haze and people scurry past, heads down, scarves held close to keep out the chill.
I trace the remnants of summer. A few stubborn petals linger by the hedge, faded and crusted with ice, in remembrance of sunnier days, butterflies and fleeting cherry blossom. It is hard to imagine the spiky stumps of rose bushes flowering again. Digging deep into the crusty earth I find my mother’s fragile name card. There are no fragrant lipstick-coloured petals to pocket but the memories of the dead linger and scent the air.
Return to Camelot
And so Sir Gawain returned to Camelot with his bride. He had married the loathly lady to defend King Arthur’s honour to the horror of both king and courtiers but now he was rewarded a thousand fold. His heroic chivalrous act had released her from a spell and she was now the most beautiful young woman he had set eyes on. How he had dreaded their night in the castle bedchamber, strewn with fresh rushes and decorated with greenery for the occasion. Slumped in a chair, he prayed for courage to face his bride but as he turned, on hearing the rustle of silk, he felt he must be dreaming. The hag was nowhere to be seen and in her place stood the fairest of maidens. The pale girl’s fair hair cascaded to her slender waist. He took her in his arms and she thanked him for releasing her from the magician’s evil charms that turned her into an ugly hag. Only Gawain, a true and gentle knight could undo the spell. He caressed her gently, untying her gown and kissing her pale shoulders.
They climbed into the huge carved bed draped with velvet and he took her to be his wife with the utmost gentilesse. The young girl marvelled at her tall handsome knight and caressed his fair hair. His blue eyes were wet with tears as they embraced again on waking. They lingered long in the chamber then sat by the open fire longing to tell the king how the spell had been broken yet not wishing to leave their place of love making for all the world.
There was much feasting and dancing that night. All the knights of the Round Table envied Gawain his beautiful bride instead of pitying him, as they had done the night before, for being brave enough to marry the old hag. The young couple, so in love, stood entwined and the grateful king honoured his loyal knight with property and riches.
The day they came into Camelot Gawain rode a white charger, garlanded with roses. His lady sat in front of him as all the court scattered rose petals in their laps and lavender at their feet, cheering the handsome knight for his chivalry. They passed under many sweet-smelling bowers laden with roses of palest pink until they reached their chamber. The knight dismounted, lifted his bride down and held her close, then kissed her tenderly to the joy of all those around them.
They climbed into the huge carved bed draped with velvet and he took her to be his wife with the utmost gentilesse. The young girl marvelled at her tall handsome knight and caressed his fair hair. His blue eyes were wet with tears as they embraced again on waking. They lingered long in the chamber then sat by the open fire longing to tell the king how the spell had been broken yet not wishing to leave their place of love making for all the world.
There was much feasting and dancing that night. All the knights of the Round Table envied Gawain his beautiful bride instead of pitying him, as they had done the night before, for being brave enough to marry the old hag. The young couple, so in love, stood entwined and the grateful king honoured his loyal knight with property and riches.
The day they came into Camelot Gawain rode a white charger, garlanded with roses. His lady sat in front of him as all the court scattered rose petals in their laps and lavender at their feet, cheering the handsome knight for his chivalry. They passed under many sweet-smelling bowers laden with roses of palest pink until they reached their chamber. The knight dismounted, lifted his bride down and held her close, then kissed her tenderly to the joy of all those around them.
Marrakesh
I have heard of the fabled city nestling beneath the Atlas Mountains, beyond the vast Sahara, an oasis on the crossroads of ancient caravan routes from Timbuktu. It is a place of hippy pilgrimage and folk tale: a pink city of flat roofs, minarets and mosques.
The sun dapples through carved white fretwork and casts shadows on low burnished metal tables, beaten in Islamic patterns. The screens muffle the noisy drum beats, throbbing in the distance. Strangers in this foreign land, we drink mint tea from little glass tumblers; it is hot, sweet, cloying.
Outside the café in the medina the city heaves; the souk is packed with shanks of thick wool, dyed indigo and magenta and glazed terracotta pots the colour of cinnamon.
Children cluster round a snake charmer sitting crossed-legged; a cobra dances round a small child lying prostrate in the dust. Camels and horses, tethered at the edge of the square, champ the sandy ground while sparrows twitter and splash in pools of stagnant water. Our old land rover with its wonky gearbox is parked nearby.
Smells of roasting chicken, mint and lemons catch the breeze in the lingering smoke; a muezzin calls the people to prayer from the minaret, beckoning them to the mosque with its bare courtyards and geometric tiles. Men in long caftans and ochre-leather mules squat in narrow alley ways smoking pipes, with grizzled hair and shining teeth.
High up, the fronds of palm trees criss-cross the sky; the amber sun is dying on the horizon, darkening the red clay earth. The city glows and fires light up dark corners of the kasbah ready for the story tellers to begin.
My long white shift is crumpled, wide jeans covering flat Indian sandals trail in the dust. A string of beads like dried currants stained the colour of mulberries tangle with long fair hair. A silver bangle and ring shine against honey-coloured skin I barely recognise. The ring is a puzzle of 12 links that fit together in a wide band. It is 1973. I am nineteen years old. We are in Marrakesh.
The sun dapples through carved white fretwork and casts shadows on low burnished metal tables, beaten in Islamic patterns. The screens muffle the noisy drum beats, throbbing in the distance. Strangers in this foreign land, we drink mint tea from little glass tumblers; it is hot, sweet, cloying.
Outside the café in the medina the city heaves; the souk is packed with shanks of thick wool, dyed indigo and magenta and glazed terracotta pots the colour of cinnamon.
Children cluster round a snake charmer sitting crossed-legged; a cobra dances round a small child lying prostrate in the dust. Camels and horses, tethered at the edge of the square, champ the sandy ground while sparrows twitter and splash in pools of stagnant water. Our old land rover with its wonky gearbox is parked nearby.
Smells of roasting chicken, mint and lemons catch the breeze in the lingering smoke; a muezzin calls the people to prayer from the minaret, beckoning them to the mosque with its bare courtyards and geometric tiles. Men in long caftans and ochre-leather mules squat in narrow alley ways smoking pipes, with grizzled hair and shining teeth.
High up, the fronds of palm trees criss-cross the sky; the amber sun is dying on the horizon, darkening the red clay earth. The city glows and fires light up dark corners of the kasbah ready for the story tellers to begin.
My long white shift is crumpled, wide jeans covering flat Indian sandals trail in the dust. A string of beads like dried currants stained the colour of mulberries tangle with long fair hair. A silver bangle and ring shine against honey-coloured skin I barely recognise. The ring is a puzzle of 12 links that fit together in a wide band. It is 1973. I am nineteen years old. We are in Marrakesh.
The Death of Chatterton by Henry Wallis 1856
Each time I see this familiar painting in Tate Britain I feel the same emotions flooding through me as they did more than thirty years ago. Pity, sorrow for the gaunt young man and a compulsion to know more. I pass over the open window, the empty phial and open chest by the narrow hard bed and turn my head sideways to stare at the pale corpse, his waxen features framed by tousled chestnut hair. His shirt is stained, his stockings wrinkled. Pointed shoes and abandoned heavy silk-lined coat are the trappings of a gentleman of fashion, now fallen on hard times. His extravagant silk breeches are blue-violet, the colour of woodland bluebells. The attic room is dark and bare, musty and damp. A single rose twines and withers, caught in the light coming through the casement. He rests, his limbs fall from him. The deed is done.
Cut is the branch that might have grown full-straight
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough.
On that first encounter, I had neither set eyes on Chatterton’s spidery writing in the British Library nor found the Georgian schoolhouse where he grew up opposite St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol. I knew little about his forgeries, his background but sensed, perhaps, that this was a poet killed by his own hand; the torn, tattered fragments lay scattered on the floor. All hope lay abandoned; Wordsworth’s ‘marvellous boy’ had ‘perished in his pride’. I wanted to tell him: you are worth more than all your ship-wrecked desires. Forget the forgeries and start again. Can you not hear the bells of St. Paul’s ringing through the narrow streets below? Does not the fragrant rose bring hope of brighter days ahead? Stop burning the midnight oil and find work. Go to the tavern and enjoy yourself rather than incarcerate yourself in a dirty garret, lonely, hungry, impoverished. Or return to Bristol, find yourself a comely wife and a few mouths to feed to set you straight. Give up this writing nonsense; get a life.
But I knew, all too well, it was in vain. That which a man most loves shall in the end destroy him. And you were in no mood to compromise; the very shade of your breeches told me that. Not for you the drab, daily toil towards middle-age, the security of a comfortable pension. You flew too near the sun; your wings were scorched. Your creativity, your uniqueness was your undoing. And I could only pity you, poor dejected youth, looking up at the stars. Your image haunts me as you tumble into oblivion and toss the world aside.
Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol in 1752, the son of a schoolmaster, and died at 17 years of age. Having spent a long time researching medieval manuscripts in St. Mary Redcliffe Church, he composed verses under the guise of a 15th century monk, Thomas Rowley. He tried to earn a living as a writer in London without success and was thought to have poisoned himself with arsenic. Chatterton was found in a garret in Holborn and was buried in a pauper’s grave. He was 17 years old.
(Originally published in INSIGHT magazine)
Cut is the branch that might have grown full-straight
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough.
On that first encounter, I had neither set eyes on Chatterton’s spidery writing in the British Library nor found the Georgian schoolhouse where he grew up opposite St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol. I knew little about his forgeries, his background but sensed, perhaps, that this was a poet killed by his own hand; the torn, tattered fragments lay scattered on the floor. All hope lay abandoned; Wordsworth’s ‘marvellous boy’ had ‘perished in his pride’. I wanted to tell him: you are worth more than all your ship-wrecked desires. Forget the forgeries and start again. Can you not hear the bells of St. Paul’s ringing through the narrow streets below? Does not the fragrant rose bring hope of brighter days ahead? Stop burning the midnight oil and find work. Go to the tavern and enjoy yourself rather than incarcerate yourself in a dirty garret, lonely, hungry, impoverished. Or return to Bristol, find yourself a comely wife and a few mouths to feed to set you straight. Give up this writing nonsense; get a life.
But I knew, all too well, it was in vain. That which a man most loves shall in the end destroy him. And you were in no mood to compromise; the very shade of your breeches told me that. Not for you the drab, daily toil towards middle-age, the security of a comfortable pension. You flew too near the sun; your wings were scorched. Your creativity, your uniqueness was your undoing. And I could only pity you, poor dejected youth, looking up at the stars. Your image haunts me as you tumble into oblivion and toss the world aside.
Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol in 1752, the son of a schoolmaster, and died at 17 years of age. Having spent a long time researching medieval manuscripts in St. Mary Redcliffe Church, he composed verses under the guise of a 15th century monk, Thomas Rowley. He tried to earn a living as a writer in London without success and was thought to have poisoned himself with arsenic. Chatterton was found in a garret in Holborn and was buried in a pauper’s grave. He was 17 years old.
(Originally published in INSIGHT magazine)
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Snowdrops
Each year green spears
Push through the snow;
Tiny white hoods droop, drift through the trees.
In the warm room
The petals have opened wide:
Stiff crinolines revealing moss-striped bodices,
Wired like fairies’ wings.
Miracles in miniature:
A trinity of trembling petals,
Perfectly created, self-assured:
The smallest harbingers of spring.
Push through the snow;
Tiny white hoods droop, drift through the trees.
In the warm room
The petals have opened wide:
Stiff crinolines revealing moss-striped bodices,
Wired like fairies’ wings.
Miracles in miniature:
A trinity of trembling petals,
Perfectly created, self-assured:
The smallest harbingers of spring.
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